A small 'Longquan' brush washer, Southern Song dynasty. Estimate 10,000 — 15,000 USD. Photo Sotheby's.

the straight flared sides rising from a sharply angled base supported on a shallow, tapering footrim, covered overall with a rich glaze of soft bluish-gray-green color, the unglazed footrim revealing a pale gray body, the edges burnt reddish brown in the firing, Japanese wood box. Diameter 3 1/2  in., 8.9 cm

Notes: The shallow form with flared sides is identified as a brush washer in various Chinese archaeological publications:  Longquan Qingci Yanjiu, 1989, drawing fig 12.4, p. 83 and plate V,3, illustrating an example excavated from a Song period tomb in the Shaoxing district; a similar washer illustrated in Liu Tao, Dated Ceramics of the Song, Liao and Jin Periods, Beijing, 2004, p. 91, no. 6-13 found in the tomb of Madam Han at Zhangshu, Qingjiang, Jiangxi province and dated by epitaph to the first year of Jingding (A.D. 1260). The same piece is illustrated again in Longquan yao yanjiu, (The Research of Longquan Kiln), Beijing, 2011, p. 39, no. 8, and described as "a new form that appeared in the Southern Song period." Compare also a very similar brush washer of the same size and form illustrated and discussed in the exhibition Song Dynasty Ceramics, the Ronald W. Longsdorf Collection, J.J. Lally & Co., New York, 2013, cat. no.  no. 7.

Sotheby's. Chinese Art through the Eye of Sakamoto Gor – Ceramics, New York, 17 mars 2015, 10:00 AM